Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a light guide element, and more particularly to a light guide plate and a light source module.
Description of Related Art
As the rapid development of point light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a light source type of backlight modules is gradually changed from a linear light source type to a point light source type, for example from conventional linear cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) to point light-emitting diodes. Refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 respectively illustrate a top view of an arrangement of a light guide plate and light-emitting diodes and a side view of a conventional backlight module. A backlight module 100 mainly includes a light guide plate 102, a plurality of light-emitting diodes 108 and a cover 112.
In the backlight module 100, the light-emitting diodes 108 are disposed near a light incidence surface 106 of the light guide plate and emit light 110 toward the light incidence surface 106 of the light guide plate 102. The cover 112 covers the light-emitting diodes 108 and a portion of a light-emitting surface 104 on a light incidence side of the light guide plate 102, i.e. covers a non-visible region 118 of the light-emitting surface 104. Light 110 emitted by the light-emitting diodes 108 enters the light guide plate 102 through the light incidence surface 106, and is emitted out of the light guide plate 102 through the light-emitting surface 104 of the light guide plate 102 after being guided by the light guide plate 102.
Refer to FIG. 3. FIG. 3 illustrates a side view of another conventional backlight module. A structure of a backlight module 100a is substantially the same as that of the aforementioned backlight module 100, and a difference between the two structures is that a light guide plate 102a of the backlight module 100a includes a tapered portion 120 and a flat plate portion 122. A thickness of the tapered portion 120 is gradually lessened from the light incidence surface 106 toward the flat plate portion 122. In the backlight module 100a, expect for a top edge of the light incidence surface 106, distances between the light-emitting surface 104a of the light guide plate 102a and the cover 112 increase.
However, as shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, if a covering range of the cover 112 is too short, an appearance light leakage phenomenon is very easy to form in the non-visible region 118 on the light incidence side of the backlight module 100 or 100a. In addition, the light-emitting diodes 108 are highly directional, so that an uneven brightness condition due to the light leakage in the non-visible region 118 of the backlight module 100 or 100a is very serious. Accordingly, eyes 114 of a user see that the backlight module 100 or 100a has poor appearance brightness uniformity and hot spots 116 usually formed on its light incidence side, such as shown in FIG. 4. Therefore, appearance brightness distribution of the conventional backlight modules 100 and 100a is uneven to seriously affect vision effects of the backlight modules 100 and 100a. 